


Significant

by BatchSan



Series: Significant-verse Ariel/Nani [1]
Category: Disney - All Media Types, Lilo & Stitch (2002), The Little Mermaid (1989)
Genre: (not in an incesty way), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Mermaids, Angst, Crossover, F/F, Falling In Love, Femslash, Fluff, Humor, Mute!Ariel, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 12:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16387433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BatchSan/pseuds/BatchSan
Summary: There have been many significant moments in Nani’s life, but one of the two that were life-changing happens to be when she saves a beautiful woman from drowning. (The other is when her parents die.)





	Significant

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote an Ariel/Nani [drabble](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16387394) a few years ago and I’ve literally never stopped thinking about this pairing. This fic was written a few months ago during a time I had a lot of trouble writing and it really helped me out of the hole. 
> 
> I did a small bit of research and found that the original Little Mermaid story originated from Denmark so hence, Ariel is from Denmark. I don't get too much into her background in this fic but I hope to explore it more in future fics. Also, I'm not sure I did justice with some of the Hawaiian words? I used what I thought fit sparingly but yeah, if anyone thinks I should fix any of them, lemme know.

Nani considers, for a moment, the odd events of her life. One day, she's a young adult with the world at her fingertips - parents happy and loving (and alive), whilst younger sister is sweet and happy. Another day, in what seems to be a whole other world, she's left to care for her sister who's no longer happy and the world is suddenly just out of Nani's reach. Today, however, she's rescuing a young woman from a strong tide, swimming hard but carefully with the unconscious woman at her side.

These events obviously have nothing to do with each other, at least not yet. They all simply mark monumental moments in Nani's life, glimpses of her life through the quickly thumbed pages of her life (the book is pretty thin, she would muse, sourly). There are other significant moments that stand out to her - awkward puberty, first kiss, first sexual encounter, aliens coming to live with her and Lilo, losing Lilo briefly at Graceland - but the above mentioned three are the most important to her. 

*

The young woman is still alive, just unconscious. Nani doesn't hesitate to do CPR on her, but something feels significant about it. She's weary from the swim and pumped up on adrenline so the significance goes clear over her head. She'll think of it later on down the road, with a blush. 

Pump... 123... Pump... 123... Breathe... Repeat... Repeat... Repe-

"Oh, thank god." Nani says as the woman coughs, water spilling from her mouth. Nani finds herself still kneeling over the other woman when blue eyes finally open, panning over their savior. In that moment, as the woman's mouth twitches in a relieved, though slighly pained, smile something twitches in Nani's heart. She's felt this familiar twitch before - David, her parents, Lilo's smile, banana split ice cream - but it's always come with signals, trust, warnings. Something logical!

This time, it's instant and Nani feels intimidated by it. Her heart had been broken enough by things she loved, sans the banana split ice cream - it was always there for her. People on the other hand, seem to be easy come, easy go. (Or not so 'easy' as 'painful'.)

"A-are you okay?" Nani asks, helping the woman into a seated position. 

The woman nods, staring mournfully at the ocean. 

"What happened?" Nani asks. "All I saw was you struggling to keep above the water."

The woman shakes her head. Her red hair is waist long Nani notes as the woman attempts to hide her face behind it but can't. It's too clumped up and wet from being in the water, a bit of seaweed is tangled up in a clump. Instead she sighs and points at herself, making carefully practiced and measured movements as she points at her throat then shakes her head.

"You can't speak?" Nani attempts to translate, quizzically.

The young woman nods. She leans forward and begins to write in the sand with a slightly trembling finger - Nani really should go get her some proper help already, she thinks - and writes _Ariel_ in the sand. The woman smiles and nods, pointing at her chest when Nani repeats it.

"Ariel? That's a pretty name. Er, for someone like you. Um, because you're pretty and it's pretty and..." Nani mentally punches herself in the face. "Do you need help? An ambulance? Are you hurt?"

Ariel shakes her head, coughing a few more times before giving Nani an okay sign. It takes her a moment before she stands, legs shaky but the trembling from her limbs had disappeared by this point. She holds Nani's hand as they walk up to the sidewalk beyond the sand. Nani’s relieved to see the woman was going to be fine, so far as she could tell. She got nervous as to what to do next, however. Just let her go on her way? Ask her out? Holy hell, had she even told Ariel what her name was?

Thankfully, Lilo solves the problem.

"Nani! Nani! Stitch and I are going to do a talent show!" Lilo exclaims, running up to her sister and holding up a flyer about said event.

"You're not going to do the record player trick with Stitch, are you?" Nani half-teases, half-honestly asks.

Lilo makes a face. "Well, not anymore..." She says, trailing off for a fraction of a second before adding, "We're going to do something amazing! Just wait!" A pause. "Who's the lady holding your hand, Nani?"

Nani blushes, releasing Ariel's hand. The redhead waves at Lilo, smiling. "This is Ariel. She was drowning and I saved her." Nani says, hoping she breathed between words and didn't say that all in one breath.

Ariel gives Lilo a thumbs up, nodding.

"Oh. So you're like her knight in shining armor?" Lilo asks her sister.

"I mean, I have no horse, but I did save her from the watery tendrils of the ocean. So I guess?"

Lilo nods in understandment. "Did you kiss her?"

Nani flushes, feeling like she can cook a whole carton of eggs with the burning embarrassment coursing through her. 

"Lilo! _Lolo_! Of course not! What are you thinking?" Nani asks.

Without skipping a beat, Lilo frowns slighly. "But doesn't the knight always get to kiss the damsel in distress after they've saved her?"

By now, Ariel is blushing too, smiling shyly at the sisters. Nani wonders what she would say if could speak. She didn't want to think about it, but now that she is, it makes her look at Ariel’s soft, pink lips and, goddammit. Lilo was going to have to die today, Nani decides.

"It's okay, miss." Lilo is saying to Ariel, taking her hand and patting it reassuredly. "My sister is new to the knight in shining armor thing. She'll definitely kiss you after the next time she saves your life."

The redhead laughs, her voice absent but a wheeze of air still managing to spill from her lips. She’s blushing, and so is Nani - though Nani doesn't know if hers is from embarrassment or rage, possibly both. Ariel makes some hand movements in Nani's direction before hitting her forehead, forgetting she likely can't read sign language, which she can't. She still recognizes what Ariel was trying to do and wonders what she had attempted to sign at her.

By now Ariel is looking markedly better from her excursion in the water, leaving Nani with a deep sense of relief. Grabbing Lilo by the back of her collar, Nani flashes a smile at the other woman. "Excuse me, but it's time for my sister's medicine."

"What medicine?" Lilo asks.

"The ass-whooping kind." Nani whispers through gritted teeth before turning back to Ariel. "I hope to see you around again, you know, not drowning or anything."

Ariel taps her shoulder and makes a motion as if she's using a phone. Before Nani can respond about not having her phone or paper on her (and that even if she did, they’d be wet and useless), Lilo is handing Ariel a small slip of paper with Nani's number written on it.

"I think it's a good idea for you two to be in contact. That way Nani will know when she can get a chance to kiss you again."

Nani excuses herself again, apologizing for her sister as she does so. She then drags Lilo away and attempts to remember that she is her sister's guardian and murdering her is a bad thing. The pros versus cons list in Nani's head for not killing her sister win pros by one. Just one thing:

If she's in jail, she'll never get to see Ariel's sweet smile again.

*

David laughs when Nani finishes telling him what had happened earlier in the day. Actually, he laughed through most of the story, particularly when Lilo factored into the story. Taking a long sip of alcohol, Nani grumbles in betrayal. Of course, David wasn't her first thought of people to speak about her love interests but the truth was, he was the only person she really talked to outside of bosses, co-workers, various customers, and a handful of neighbors that still pittied her because of her parents' untimely death.

Things hadn't worked out between David and Nani, in terms of boyfriend and girlfriend stuff. They had always been more friends than anything, so they just let it slip back into a platonic friendship; It had been awkward at first, but not for long, thankfully. Oddly enough, David was still a big part of their lives, taking on a big brother role to Lilo and Stitch. It made Nani’s life easier, calmer. That was greatly appreciated, Nani couldn't deny it. 

"So, do you think she'll call?" David asks, then makes a funny face. "Wait, how would she do that if she can't speak?"

As if on cue, Nani's phone vibrates on the table beside her arm, making her jump slightly. The only time she ever got messages or phone calls was when someone was sick, she was fired, or Lilo did something that was going to infuriate her. 

It was a text message.

**Hello. Is this Nani?**

**Yes  
Who's this?**

**Ariel. The girl you helped earlier. =)**

"Is it her?" David asks.

"Uh, yeah. I'm not sure what to say." Nani looks panicstricken even as she types. 

**Hey. Everything okay with you?**

"Just relax." David says. "She probably wants to tell you thank you properly is all."

"Yeah, that makes sense." Nani says, trying to relax. Were her palms sweating? A little...

**I'm fine. Thank you for rescuing me! =D  
Sorry I wasn't better able to say it earlier. =(**

Phew, Nani thinks.

**I was hoping to meet up with you for coffee sometime?**

Oh shit.

"David, she wants to get coffee with me." Nani's voice has an edge of panic creeping into it. She doesn’t realize it though, perhaps to her benefit.

"Wow. Already?" David looks surprised. "Do you think if I save a girl's life she'll want to date me, too?"

The word 'date' sends butterflies fluttering about Nani's stomach. She can't date - she's got a sister to raise! And work to do! So much work, both at actual work and at home! Also, aliens to worry about, even though they had been behaving lately - that made her a little wary, she'd have to check in on them better, she thought. Dating was not something Nani could really ever afford to do. Well, okay, she could, but could she do it? That was the question that made her hands tremble ever so as she types a response.

**Coffee sounds good**

Oh man, smooth wordplay! But hey, it was just coffee! Not a date! That's what the logical part of Nani's brain wanted her to think, at least.

**Are you free tomorrow around noon?**

No, Nani’s mind screams, even though she knows better.

**Yes sounds good  
Text me where'd you like to meet and I'll see you there**

Did that sound too desperate? Nani wonders.

Wait.

Did she just say yes?

" _Hupo..._ " Nani groans and buries her face in her arms. 

*

Surprisingly, without incident, or suspicion, Nani manages to arrive at the small coffee spot on time. To her bewilderment, it doesn't look like anyone had thought to tail her. Perhaps, she reasons, she was being paranoid. It wasn't as though it was without good reason. Things were unpredictable in Nani's life, as much as she hoped – hell, most times she prayed - for things otherwise. 

Her phone buzzed in her hand - it was a text from Ariel.

**Are you going to come inside or continue to look around out there? =?**

Nani looked up to see Ariel waving from a corner window. She heard herself laugh, somewhat guiltily. Like a bad child caught stealing something and putting it back as though they were joking. Only the only joke here was Nani and she did her best to not hang her head like an idiot as she entered the establishment and took the seat opposite Ariel. 

Now that Ariel had had time to clean up and put herself in order, Nani found her eyes eating up the young woman. Not that she hadn't noticed the brillance of her eyes already but now she could see the soft waves in her red hair properly. There was something wild but delicately tamed about Ariel's hair. Nani restrained herself from running her fingers through all that hair, but only just. Aside that, a simple necklace with a small purple seashell hung around Ariel's neck, drawing Nani's eyes to the cute green bikini top she wore. There was something perfect about Ariel, she decided. Too perfect, perhaps?

" _Mahalo_." Nani greets, smiling. "I'm happy to see you well today. Does that happen often? The drowning, I mean."

Ariel gives her a half-smile before typing on her phone. 

**The ocean and I used to be best friends, but not for a long while.**

Then as if realizing it might be a little rude what she was doing, Ariel made a troubled face, pointing at her phone, making an okay sign with her hand, then drawing a question mark in the air. Nani smiles and nods.

"If that's what works best for you for communicating, I'm cool with it." She answers as the waitress arrives at the table. Nani orders a coffee, noting for the first time that Ariel had nothing in front of her. "Um, can I order something for you?" She asks, uncertain if that would be rude or presumptious.

**Orange juice. I don't like coffee tbh, sorry. xD**

This makes Nani laugh as she places the order and the waitress leaves with an unasked question on her lips. For some reason, that laugh helps relax Nani and she settles in to chat with Ariel, learning she had moved to Hawaii from Denmark recently but she had lived all over the world over the course of her life. Ariel wasn't overly fond about speaking about her dad but she told Nani about her six older sisters – something Nani couldn’t even begin to imagine as one was bad enough but six? Holy hell. When asked about her mother, Ariel gave Nani a sad smile.

**Died when I was born. =(**

That broke Nani's heart to pieces, thinking of her own deceased mother and realizing that it wasn't the same. Nani had gotten to know her mother - her laugh, her expressions, her voice - but Ariel only had pictures and stories from her father and sisters. That left a queasy feeling in Nani's stomach. Without realizing she was doing it, she reaches out and takes one of Ariel's hands into her own, smiling sadly. 

"I'm so sorry about your mother." She says, then blushes.

Ariel also blushes, typing with one hand.

**Thanks. It's okay. =)**

There was a knock on the glass beside them then. Nani turns to see Stitch and Lilo outside making faces and waving at her. She's pretty sure Stitch just made a wolf-whistle at them. The mortification runs deep as Nani tries not to jump out of her seat to run outside and throttle them. Instead, she feels Ariel's hand still in her owns, looks at her, and laughs. Ariel laughs, too, her eyes bright as she does so.

Something about it feels so right to Nani. 

It's a little scary. 

*

Somehow, someway, Ariel asks Nani out again after that day. This time it's on a simple shopping trip. Not exactly the most romantic thing for a date... Assuming it was a date, that was. Nani honestly had no clue nor did she have the gull to ask. Things were nice though between them at least. After getting coffee together – they had texted a lot over the next week and a half prior to the shopping excursion. Ariel managed to find Nani's rarely used Facebook page and added her as a friend. Nani complied to the request but she gulped deeply when she snuck a peek in the redhead's photos and found more than one of Ariel in a bikini. Innocent photos, at that! Like, Ariel was playing volleyball with friends in one photo. In another, Ariel was leaning against a railing in her bikini, watching the setting sun. The highlights of sun in her red hair was enough to make Nani’s knees go weak a bit. 

Despite being alone at the time, Nani actually looked around before saving the setting sun photo, hiding it in a vault app in case Lilo went snooping through her phone, not for the first time. The last time Lilo had found a somewhat racy photo of Nani in a bra that was only held up with her arm. It had been purely for fun, Nani swore (and she was truthful in that, because Nani seemed to be going through a phase of ‘forever alone’ at the time). Somehow it ended up as a printout on the refrigerator. If David hadn't held Nani down, Lilo would've been dead, or she might’ve put her on a raft and set her aloft out to sea – she hadn’t been thinking clearly about the consequences of either at the time.

*

It had been two weeks since Nani had saved Ariel's life and they were strolling about in an area Nani usually avoided. The stores were a tad out of her affordability range, and by tad, she meant _a lot_. Mostly the only people that came here were the rich tourists or the foolish tourists who didn't know where the cheaper stores were. Normally, Nani felt just the slightest bit of comtempt for the tourists who bought stuff here (and by ‘contempt’, she meant ‘jealousy’), but today she felt something akin to amazement to see Ariel make purchases without batting an eye at the price on the register. Actually, the first purchase – two t-shirts and a cute lavender sundress with seashells dancing along it’s length – was over a hundred and eighty dollars. This gave Nani goosebumps and a mild case of nausea. Not that she would have dared to say anything about it to Ariel because it wasn’t her business, though it made her feel out of place all the same.

Still, Ariel seemed to be having a good time. She texted Nani jokes and asked her which shoes looked better on her. Despite her feelings of being out of her element, Nani found she was having fun too, at least so long as she was with Ariel. That part she only vaguely considered and acknowledged before pushing it aside in fear she would overthink it and ruin the day somehow. It’s not like it would be the first time, Nani knew.

 **Hungry?** Ariel asks after their fourth store where they only looked without buying.

“A little.” Nani replies noncommitally, hoping that Ariel would pick maybe an ice cream stand – something affordable ( _sane_ , Nani secretly thought).

Instead, they go to a cute cafe and order smoothies and burgers which is okay with Nani. To keep from seeming as poor as she truly was, Nani pays half the bill despite Ariel’s protests. That was okay, she reasons, because this wasn’t a date and it was okay.

It wasn’t a date, right? 

**I bet you would look really cute in the sundress I bought earlier.**

After that comment, Nani wasn’t so sure anymore about this not being a date. This made her nervous, butterflies dancing in her chest and stomach. It was a good feeling, after all, she liked Ariel. Liked her quite a lot by this point, but Nani was terrified of things going wrong between them. She found she was even more terrified of pushing herself away and potentially giving Ariel the wrong idea.

**We should go back to my place to see. Yeah? =)**

Blue eyes are looking up at her curiously, perhaps attempting to gauge her reaction and/or interest. Nani felt lost in Ariel’s eyes, her nerves relaxing. God, if she was going to screw things up, at least let her have some fun first, Nani thought.

“I wouldn’t mind doing that.” Nani agrees, smiling.

*

“Did you two...?” David asks. Nani notes that he isn’t giving her a pervy smirk or anything, he geniunely seems curious. 

“A bit...” Nani says slowly, a smile sneaking across her face. “Okay, yeah. We did.”

David laughs. “So it’s official then? You got yourself a girlfriend?”

Playing her fingers on the table between them, Nani blushes and shrugs. “I guess. I don’t really know. We haven’t exactly said those words.” A pause. “You don’t think she did it out of pity or as a reward thing?” Now a slight panic. “Or do you think she used me? For, you know, _that_?”

“Have you spoken to her since?”

“Well, yeah. We’re going to the movies with Lilo next weekend.”

“Then she didn’t use you for _that_.” David says, imitating Nani’s voice, horribly. “I think she might just really like you.”

“You think so?” Nani asks, unsure.

“Yes.” David pauses now, looking Nani’s face over carefully. “You like her too, right?”

Nani only nods, her fingers still playing at the table. 

“Then relax. Maybe this is the break you’ve been needing for a long time now. And I don’t mean like a nap kind of ‘break’.”

Now Nani rubs her shoulder, thinking about Ariel’s fingers against her skin and sighing softly. “I just don’t want it to end badly.”

“Hey.” David says, waiting for Nani to look him in the eye. “Maybe it won’t end. At least not now. Maybe not this month, maybe not this year. Maybe never at all. But if you don’t at least try, then how will you know?”

“Trying isn’t the hard part, David. It’s how things turn out that can be.”

David sighs, patting Nani’s hand. “You’re a good person, who deserves good things and good people. You just have to keep your chin up. I believe in you.”

For the first time since the shopping trip with Ariel, Nani feels calm.

*

Lilo accompanies them to a movie – Stitch tags along because things are rarely simple in Nani’s life. Not that Lilo alone was simple, heaven’s forbid the very thought of those two words (‘Lilo’ and ‘simple’) in a sentence that wasn’t, _‘Why don’t you ever make things simple, Lilo?’_ ever existed. And simple, Lilo was not. She questioned Ariel over the strangest things while they waited in line to buy movie tickets.

“Does it ever get hot in Denmark?”  
“Do you think the moon over Hawaii is the same one you’ve seen in other parts of the world?”  
“Have you ever seen a mermaid?”

Nani felt a familiar wariness caused by Lilo’s onslaught of questions. Ariel, on the other hand, was amused by the younger girl’s quizzical nature.

**Of course! =)**  
**Logically, I wanna say yes, but honestly? I think there’s really four different ones that all look alike. XD**  
**Once. She was beautiful beyond words.**

Since Lilo didn’t have a phone – Nani couldn’t afford it, and even if she could, she didn’t trust Lilo to take care of it, not yet – Nani read out Ariel’s answers. She laughed a little at the mermaid answer, until she saw the sultry look Ariel was giving her, in which instance she began blushing and had to turn her attention away so Lilo wouldn’t see. It wasn’t until that moment that the thought of telling Lilo about herself and Ariel had even arisen in her mind. Oh good, now things would get to be awkward!

Steering herself for it, now that she knew to be on the look out for it, Nani got their tickets and made up her mind to just try and relax and enjoy the movie. They got snacks and then sat down in the middle of the theater where Lilo proclaimed they would all have the best view of the screen. She wasn’t exactly wrong either, but it did mean that they had to split into two pairs because the middle of the theater was split by an aisle. Lilo sat in the aisle seat to left of the split, Stitch beside her. Nani took the aisle seat across from her to keep an eye on her. It did, however, give her a sense of relief especially when ten minutes into the film, Ariel laced her fingers with Nani’s. She wondered if Ariel would’ve done it had Lilo been sitting closer to them? Then she pushed it aside and focused on the film. 

One thing at a time, girl.

*

“In the end, nothing much happened.” Nani says. Today she and David are cleaning the house, a feat she just couldn’t quite get the hang of doing often on her own. Well, not that she couldn’t, it was just hard working and keeping an eye and ear out for Lilo and Stitch, as well as Jumba and Pleakley, all day. She was usually wiped out by the end of the day, usually long before it. Thankfully, things weren’t as bad as they had been once upon a time but still, having David around to help was a blessing. “Lilo asked a few more weird questions then we went home.”

“No goodnight kiss?” David teases.

Nani hits him with a rolled up magazine causing them both to burst out laughing.

“Have you brought it up with either of them since then?” David asks when they sober up. Nani, who was folding some laundry, froze. “ _Owei_! Come on, Nani, you can’t keep them separate and still together with you. You have to tell Lilo.”

“Yes, because it’s super easy to tell your kid sis that you’re a lesbian, now. Maybe?”

“Are you?”

Nani shrugs. “I like Ariel a lot, that’s all that matters.”

Conceding this to be a valid explanation, David finishes folding his portion of clothing in silence. The silence, though companionable, gives Nani time to mull over what he had said.

“You know, Lilo won’t care.” David finally says, startling her slightly. “You guys live with aliens. Big sister having a girlfriend pales in comparison to that.”

He holds up an old towel Stitch has claimed as his very own superhero cape to drive home his point. Lilo had managed to write out Stitch’s name on it with permanent marker that was faded now from washing.

“It’s not so much Lilo I’m worried about.” Nani says, almost quietly. “I think I’m just worried Ariel is not going to be much interested in me after her seeing how weird things can get around here. What if it all scares her away? I couldn’t blame her but it would… It would really...”

Nani couldn’t finish the words, instead holding a hand up to her heart, as if shielding it from the world in the most childishly hopeful way an adult can only do unconsciously. She hadn’t really voiced these ideas before, but she always wondered. David had been fine with the aliens when they dated, but he was used to them by then. With a new partner, Nani risked them running off at the first inkling of strange shit coming from the Pelekai homestead. Not that Ariel couldn’t have not known something was off about them after first seeing or meeting Stitch, he was too obvious, but maybe she tried to believe him to be a very unusual breed of dog, the same way Nani had when she first had seen him. Still, Pleakley and Jumba were harder to pretend away, no matter how many ridiculous outfits they wore.

“Nothing worth having is easy.” David surprises her by saying. He looks mildly surprised by the wisdom of his words as well. Normally, that would have made her laugh, today it made her shiver.

Not for the first time, Nani couldn’t help but wonder if she was ever meant to have anything as good as Ariel.

*

 **Do you want to hang out at the beach today? =?**

Looking up from the pizza halfway to her mouth, Nani smiles and nods. “Sounds fun.” She says.

Today Ariel’s hair is pulled up into a messy ponytail that Nani desperately wants to free her hair from. It felt silly to her but she found that when Ariel’s hair was loose it was the sexiest thing she had ever seen. Obviously dictating someone else’s hairstyle was no right or business of hers – except for Lilo, that was, and not that she ever did – so Nani tried to put it out of her mind. Except every time she looked up, it caught her attention. 

**Something wrong??**

“No, I just love looking at you.” A blush filled pause. “If that’s okay to say?”

They still had yet to define their relationship and Nani realized that the ‘love’ word could easily be misconstrued and send people running, screaming, at the mere passing mention of it. She herself was totally unsure how she would react if Ariel had said it to her right then. It wasn’t at all likely it would send her running, but it would definitely send her mind reeling a thousand miles per minute. Focusing on just eating around Ariel was often a Herculean effort (considering the other kind of eating she could do with her instead and yeah, that was a distracting thought).

**I like looking at you too. =)  
I also love hearing your voice.**

Ariel, the often times epitome of wide-eye innocence, blushes as she sends the message, then goes a brighter shade of red as Nani’s eyes dart over her phone’s screen. It’s almost funny, Nani thinks, that Ariel is blushing, wide-eyed, and there’s a bit of pizza sauce on the corner of her mouth that, _”If I were to go over there and lick it off, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself there with her”_. Oh, and the funny part would be that in that moment, at that thought, Nani’s face was only a wide-eyed stare back at her, mouth slightly agape and pizza paused in mid-air before her mouth as though she had hit an invisible barrier on the way to her mouth.

Something from that first time she had sat down for coffee (and orange juice) with Ariel came back to her – how things with Ariel felt perfect. For the first time, she realized that perhaps she was still waiting for things to implode somewhere along the lines and yet, here they both were, months down the line from that thought, and still, they were both smitten with each other in the most un-ironic sense of the word ‘smitten’.

It fluttered something in Nani’s chest. Something she was almost surprised to realize was hope.

*

Today Nani was down at the beach with Ariel, Lilo, and Stitch. She was surprised to see Jumba and Pleakley further down the shoreline, in the worst disguises that people still managed to be willfully ignorant of their true selves. Ignorance was bliss, apparently. It was a nice day, clear and bright. The air smelled sweet and salty and Nani felt sleepy as she inhaled, pushing herself up from where she had been laying on a beach blanket on the sand. Sitting cross-legged, Nani watched Ariel dance about in the waves softly sweeping over the sand. Nearby Stitch was building a sandcastle that strongly resembled Times Square in New York City – clearly he’d been paying too much attention to Lilo’s sandcastle building lessons. Beside Nani, Lilo sat, eating a sandwich that was likely more peanut butter and sand than peanut butter and banana. 

It had been some time now since she had almost lost Lilo to child services and her sister had grown in that time. Matured somewhat, as well. At least enough that she tried to do less voodoo on her supposed ‘friends’, at least. For some reason, it made Nani feel old, seeing Lilo get older, but it almost made her feel good; accomplished. She had done right by her family in raising Lilo, at least in making sure she didn’t die, as often though as Nani had had thoughts of killing her. She supposed that was a sibling thing, which was good because it meant that despite her being Lilo’s lawful guardian for the past few years, she was still her sister and that meant far more to her. She didn’t want to replace their parents, not ever.

“Nani?”

“Hm?”

“I like Ariel.” Lilo says, watching said woman bend down and scoop up a conch shell to press it to her ear.

“Me too.” Nani says back, earnestly.

“Good. You deserve to be happy. I want you to be happy, Nani.”

It was unspoken but of course Lilo would have figured out the relationship between the two women by now. Nani wasn’t surprised by this – wholeheartedly relieved, actually. She leaned over and bopped her head softly against Lilo’s, smiling.

“Thanks.”


End file.
